Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems (NGES) was a business segment of

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tech ...

from 1996 to 2015 until a reorganization on January 1, 2016 merged other Northrop Grumman businesses into NGES to form a new segment called Mission Systems. NGES had originally been created by Northrop Grumman's acquisition of Westinghouse Electronic Systems Group in 1996. The Electronic Systems sector was a designer, developer, and manufacturer of a wide variety of advanced defense electronics and systems. The division had 120 locations worldwide, including 72 international offices, and approximately 24,000 employees. Accounting for 20% of company sales in 2005.Northrop Grumman Corporation (2006), ''2005 Annual Report''

Organization Divisions

Headquartered outside

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

in Linthicum,

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

near the Baltimore airport ( BWI), Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems was organized into the following divisions: *Advanced Concepts & Technologies *Aerospace Systems *Naval & Marine Systems *Defensive Systems *Navigation Systems *Government Systems *Space & ISR Systems

Systems

Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems provided: * Airborne

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

systems * Secondary surveillance systems *

Inertial navigation system An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors ( accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity ...

s and sensors *

Electronic warfare Electronic warfare (EW) is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponent ...

systems * Precision weapons *

Air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...

systems *

Air defense Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based ...

systems * Communications systems * Space systems * Marine systems * Naval systems, * Integrated avionics systems * Postal automation and information systems

Key Products

Key products included

active electronically scanned array An active electronically scanned array (AESA) is a type of phased array antenna, which is a computer-controlled array antenna in which the beam of radio waves can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving the an ...

fire control radar A fire-control radar (FCR) is a radar that is designed specifically to provide information (mainly target azimuth, elevation, range and range rate) to a fire-control system in order to direct weapons such that they hit a target. They are sometime ...

s for the

F-16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successf ...

, F-22 and

F-35 The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions. It is also able to provide elect ...

fighter aircraft, as well as the Longbow Fire Control Radar for the

AH-64 Apache The Boeing AH-64 Apache () is an American twin- turboshaft attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement and a tandem cockpit for a crew of two. It features a nose-mounted sensor suite for target acquisition and night v ...

helicopter. Other principal products included the AWACS radar, the

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...

-based Wedgetail MESA airborne early warning and control systems, E-8 Joint STARS air-to-ground surveillance radar sensor, the Longbow Hellfire missile, the ALQ-135 radar jammer for the

F-15 Eagle The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an American Twinjet, twin-engine, all-weather Air combat manoeuvring#Tactics, tactical fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). Following reviews of proposals, the United States ...

, ALQ-218 Tactical Jamming Receiver for the EA-18G Growler and EA-6B ICAP III Prowler, tactical military radars, countrywide air defense systems, Directional Infrared Counter Measures, sophisticated undersea warfare systems, and naval propulsion and power generation systems.

History

Electronic Systems' direct roots date to 1938, when

Westinghouse Electric Corporation The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in ...

’s Radio Division moved to

, Maryland from

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

and

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. In 1939, Westinghouse more than doubled its manufacturing area in its Baltimore location to accommodate production of the then highly-secret

SCR-270 The SCR-270 (Set Complete Radio model 270) was one of the first operational early-warning radars. It was the U.S. Army's primary long-distance radar throughout World War II and was deployed around the world. It is also known as the Pearl Harbor ...

aircraft warning radar. In 1941, an SCR-270 radar detected the December 7 attack on

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...

; its warnings went unheeded because of high-level uncertainty about the new technology's reliability. The first ground-based radar built for the Army Signal Corps, the SCR-270 proved to be the only model to stay in action throughout all of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. From 1941–1945 the Westinghouse Radio Division manufactured approximately 50 products during the war. Until 1942, most of this was radio equipment; later production shifted to radar products. Wartime production included ground-based and naval radio and radar, electronic fuses, and torpedoes. In 1953, the unit patented key technologies for

Pulse-Doppler radar A pulse-Doppler radar is a radar system that determines the range to a target using pulse-timing techniques, and uses the Doppler effect of the returned signal to determine the target object's velocity. It combines the features of pulse radars and ...

, making possible airborne systems that can detect both stationary and moving targets, determine range, and distinguish targets from background "clutter." Pulse-Doppler is the basis for all airborne radars in use today. By 1966, the division designed and developed a miniaturized black-and-white camera that captured images from the Project Apollo Lunar Module that landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. In 1967, The world's first solid-state radar, the AN/APQ-120 for the

F-4 Phantom II The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and ...

fighter, was produced by the division. In 1947, Westinghouse acquired Joshua Hendy Iron Works. In 1974, the division began development of the AN/APG-66 radar for the F-16; the unit has produced over 6,000 radars for various versions of the F-16. In 1976, Westinghouse Electronic Systems delivered the first

E-3 Sentry The Boeing E-3 Sentry is an American airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft developed by Boeing. E-3s are commonly known as AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System). Derived from the Boeing 707 airliner, it provides all-wea ...

AWACS long-range airborne surveillance radar. In 1996, Westinghouse was selected to design, build and test the radar for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, what became the AN/APG-81.

Expansion within Northrop Grumman

Electronic Systems was central to Northrop Grumman's aggressive merger and acquisition strategy since its own acquisition in 1996. Parts or all of the following companies or organizations were part of the sector: Westinghouse Electronic Systems, California Microwave,

Litton Industries Litton Industries was a large defense contractor in the United States named after inventor Charles Litton Sr. During the 1960s, the company began acquiring many unrelated firms and became one of the largest conglomerates in the United States. A ...

Advanced Electronics division, Solystic SA,

Xetron Corporation Xetron Corporation is a Northrop Grumman Corporation subsidiary and government contractor developing software and communications systems. Background Xetron used to produce the popular Xetron SPL-60 low noise audio amplifier with a tunable comb ...

, Aerojet Corporation Electronics & Information Systems, and Fibersense Technology Corp. During the period from 1996 to 2005, Electronic Systems' annual sales increased from US$2.3B to US$6.6B through organic growth as well as acquisitions.

References